Moonlight

After we had eaten the pheasant the farmer's wife wife produced a warm, home baked sponge that was topped with fresh peaches, sliced and juicy. It was a glowing, delicious moment and none of us could believe our luck. Here we were, rescued from the wilderness and now dining in some style. Our fatigue, minor injuries and the disappointment of our failure to find the passage was temporarily suspended. I sat back in the old wooden Captain's chair and couldn't help but grin across the table at my fellow travellers. The farmer's wife then began to clear the table, we all began to help, chatting, laughing and satisfied.

There was a full moon that night and I glanced out of the dining room window. I could see right across the fields and there in the near distance I could now make out a figure, it looked like the farmer. The moonlight was picking him out like a searchlight, he was standing over something, a shape on the ground. As my eyes grew accustomed to the scene and distance it became clear that he was bending down examining the carcass of a red deer.